Widow's Voice

My Heart’s Music~

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Do you think I’m going to let you just leave after telling me something like that?

These were Chuck’s words as I headed to the door after confessing to him that I’d fallen in Love with him.

I’d been attending meetings for adult children of alcoholics and counseling, where I practiced telling myself the truth and speaking honestly to others for the first time in a long time.

So, when I realized I was in Love with Chuck, after many months of mere friendship, I wanted to tell him. At least that way it wouldn’t be hidden away.

I don’t expect anything from you, and it’s okay and I truly don’t mean to make you uncomfortable if you don’t feel the same way. I just wanted to tell you. I’m not staying. I need to get back to my boys.

He stopped me at the door, as I reached for the handle, and leaned one hand against the wall beside me.

I turned to face him when he said what he did, and he put his other hand on the wall. Boxing me in, so to speak.

I’m in Love with you, too.

And he leaned in and kissed me.

My knees buckled, I swear.

I’d never had such a strong reaction to a kiss ever before.

Chuck Dearing held my heart in his careful and loving hands from that moment on.

He nurtured my heart, and me, every day of the 2 decades and 4 years that we lived in Love.

He still does.

Hold my heart, that is.

I sit here tonight, writing this, as our country holds its’ collective breath.

I’m listening to Susan Boyle sing I Dreamed a Dream.

Chuck listened to her sing this every night as he signed off for the day.

I listen to her every night too.

Maybe it will bring Chuck to me in my dreams, is my thinking.

Even though I’m so sure of my mission in this life without Chuck, I miss him unbearably. Current times only exacerbate that unbearable missing.

So I listen to music that reminds me of him. Music that he and I danced to. New music, too, that I’ve found since his death, that I know he’d appreciate.

The music flows into my heart sweetly now, ever since my moment last week in northwest Texas (see previous blog). Oh god, yes, it makes me long for him so deeply…and it floods me with Love for him, and remembrance of the strength of the two of us together.

Whatever tomorrow brings, Chuck is in my heart and soul.

His left behind Love envelops and embraces me, wrapping me in all that he and I were for so many years.

I was loved deeply

and passionately by a man who cherished and respected and honored me.

Whatever all the tomorrows bring, that Love is my armor.

Always and always~

 

 

About Alison Miller

My beloved husband Chuck died while we were full timing on the road. We’d rented a condo for our stay in southern CA, and I had to leave 3 weeks after his death. All I knew at that time was that I had to find a way to continue traveling on my own, because settling down without him made me break into a cold sweat. I knew that the only place I’d find any connection to Chuck again was out on the roads we’d been traveling for our last 4 years together. I knew nobody out on the road, I knew grief was a great isolator, and I knew I had to change the way I traveled without him, to make it more emotionally bearable for me. So I bought a new car, had a shade of pink customized for it, bought a tiny trailer and painted the trim in pink, learned how to tow and camp, and set out alone. My anxiety was through the roof, and all I knew to trust was the Love that Chuck left behind for me. I found Soaring Spirits early on, thank god, and the connections I made through SS helped ground me to some extent. I needed to know that other widow/ers were out there in my world, because I felt so disoriented and dislocated. Through Soaring Spirits, as the miles added up, my rig taking me north, south, east and west, I found community. I found sanity…or at least I learned that if I was bat shit crazy, I was in good company, and realizing that ultimately saved my sanity. PinkMagic, my rig, is covered with hundreds of names of loved ones sent to me by my widowed community, and I know it isn’t visible to the naked eye, but I’ll let you in on a secret…she actually illuminates Love as I drive down the many roads in our country, and I can see it through my side view mirror. Love does, indeed, live on~

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